Awakening Dead Time: Adorno on Husserl, Benjamin, and the Temporality of Music

Abstract

This essay studies the relationship between Adorno's philosophy of music and his critique of phenomenology. It argues that the understanding of historical experience that Adorno develops in his reading of phenomenology casts light on his understanding of the experience of music as well, especially the experience of musical time. It proceeds in three parts. First, it sketches two moments in Adorno's critique of Husserl. Second, it relates this critique to the thought of Walter Benjamin. Third, it contrasts Adorno's conception of musical time with Husserl's account of time in his On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time. These readings show that Adorno models musical time on what Benjamin calls Messianic time; that Adorno opposes musical time to what he calls empirical time; that Adorno models empirical time on Benjamin's concept of phantasmagoria; and that Adorno sees this phantasmagoric temporality reflected in Husserl's phenomenology.